5+ weeks reduction in prototype delivery

Growing product portfolio requires connected platformed, cohesive collaboration

Formlabs is rapidly growing in size both in their employee headcount and product portfolio. Because of this growth, teams across the organization found it increasingly difficult to navigate across multiple systems and even harder to find and communicate the product information they needed at any given time of the product development lifecycle.

Searching for historical information in real-time was becoming increasingly difficult as they continued to go to market with new products. When they needed to understand what, how, and why changes happened, it would take several hours to filter through various systems for an answer. “We knew this couldn’t scale with us as we are doubling in size every year and adding to our product portfolio,” said Danielle Class, Chief of Staff, Engineering at Formlabs. “I really felt the pain when I was in China doing NPI (New Product Introduction) for the Form 3. I was having to communicate across timezones and language barriers and across all of these systems for a brand new product. It wasn’t working.”

“It is the best of both worlds that we might not get on another platform. Propel gives us the flexibility to do things like a young scrappy startup and the maturity in the later stages during prototypes and production, all while making sure the right set of eyes are on the product.”

^{Daniel Snow, CIO}

The power of a unified, configurable platform

Propel gives Formlabs the much-needed unified platform for all of their product information, incorporating their data from third-party systems and engineering tools like Solidworks and Altium. Propel is the hub for all of their product data with dashboards, reporting, approvals, workflows, change orders, contextual collaboration, supplier portals and more.

After implementing Propel, Formlabs saw increased efficiencies within their internal processes almost immediately. “In our first month, we created over 1,000 assemblies and subassemblies and released over 150 engineering change orders, which is significant for us,” said Snow. Their change management processes moved from manual Google forms to automated and streamlined approvals and workflows within Propel, giving them better visibility into what changed, when and by whom as well as global access control for their remote teams and suppliers. “With Propel we are able to ramp up a brand new supplier quickly while having control into what they can see and access,” said Class.

Whether Formlabs is in the early stages of prototyping, the later stages of production or communicating with their suppliers in China, Propel ensures everyone in the value chain has visibility to all product changes.

“It is the best of both worlds that we might not get on another platform,” said Snow. “Propel gives flexibility and maturity to product development. The flexibility to do things like when we were a young scrappy startup and the maturity in the later stages during prototypes and production, all while making sure the right set of eyes are on the product.”